The LCLS-II is the first X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) to utilize continuous-wave superconducting accelerator technology (CW-SCRF), capable of delivering X-ray pulses at repetition rates up to 1 MHz. The LCLS-II fast wire scanner motion control system, based on the Aerotech Ensemble controller, is designed to measure the beam profile across both high and low repetition rates. To effectively...
Serverless refers to a set of principles and practices that offload the complexities of provisioning, managing and scaling infrastructure to a cloud computing provider. At Fermilab, the Controls department has been investigating how to bring the promise of Serverless on-premise by providing similar cloud-computing infrastructure to software development teams. In this paper we discuss how...
Accelerator digital twins can enable real-time optimization and predictive control helping streamline complex facility operations and reduce setup time. Machine Learning(ML) models can enhance digital twin capabilities by leveraging prior experiments, known parameters, and real-time measurements. These require robust infrastructure and open-source software tools for accurate beam modeling and...
The p4p library is a Python wrapper for the C++ pvxs library allowing Python developers to access client functionality to put, get, and monitor pvAccess PVs. Server functionality allows the creation of PVs and implements the structure of the most commonly used Normative Types (e.g. NTScalar) and their fields (e.g. alarm, control, etc.). To facilitate the transition to EPICS underway at the...
The future of synchrotron beamline operations is poised for a transformative leap with advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). While SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre* has yet to integrate these technologies, their potential to revolutionize experiments, data analysis, and user interactions is immense. AI-driven automation promises real-time...
We present a web-based application that significantly simplifies and accelerates the development of Tango Controls device servers by integrating large language models (LLMs) into the code generation process. The tool allows users to define device attributes, commands, and properties through an intuitive graphical interface, and optionally upload device documentation in PDF format. Using...
We present the design of a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) based scientific chatbot, tailored for control room operators at particle accelerators and laser facilities. The chatbot integrates with institutional knowledge bases, including operational manuals, control system documentation, incident logs, and structured machine data, to provide real-time, context-aware responses to operator...
A challenge that industrial particle accelerators face is the high amounts of noise in sensor readings. This noise obscures essential beam diagnostic and operational data, limiting the amount of information that is relayed to machine operators and beam instrumentation engineers. Machine learning-based techniques have shown great promise in isolating noise patterns while preserving...
The CERN’s Electrical Power Converters group manages over 5000 power converters, 4000 of which are controlled, monitored, and diagnosed by a few generations of the Function Generator/Controller (FGC) devices. However, the current generation (FGC3) is now facing performance limitations and component obsolescence. To address this and accommodate future installations at CERN and other...
As the design complexity of modern accelerators grows, there is more interest in using advanced simulations that have fast execution time or yield additional insights like gradients. The FAST/IOTA facility has been working on implementing and experimentally validating an end-to-end digital twin that is both fast and gradient-aware, allowing for rapid prototyping of new software and experiments...
By the end of 2024, to cope with needs of future ATLAS tracking detector (ITk), surface integration and testing facility at CERN was fully equipped with a new large power and low temperature cooling system nick-named “DEMO Inheritance” based on the 2PACL technique. This paper will discuss implemented control system solutions for both the cooling plant and the distribution system installed in...
Mogno* is a micro- and nano-tomography beamline at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Source, SIRIUS. It performs fast tomographies with tender (22 keV, 39 keV) and hard (67 keV) X-rays at resolutions down to 500 nm, supporting classic, 4D (time-resolved), zoom (continuous magnification) and high-throughput experiments. Two stations are available: a nano-station for external users and a...
Inferring latent variables, such as Courant-Snyder parameters in particle accelerators, is challenging due to noisy, partial observations that often produce multi-modal posterior distributions, despite the true latent variable being unique. We present a Bayesian Active Learning (BAL) framework to enhance latent variable inference in simulation-equipped control systems. BAL actively selects...
The Beamline Operations and Learning Testbed (BOLT) is a portable, cost-effective platform developed at the Advanced Light Source, inspired by a similar device developed at Diamond Light Source, to test experimental control systems without disrupting user operations. BOLT simulates a beamline endstation with minimal hardware (two motors, one detector) while implementing the complete EPICS/...
This paper presents CANModule, an open‑source, cross‑platform library that provides a unified abstraction layer for vendor‑specific Controller Area Network (CAN) bus implementations. It supports ethernet‑CAN gateways from Analytica and Linux’s SocketCAN out of the box, and offers an open architecture for adding further gateways. Requiring only standard C++17, CANModule is lightweight and...
The SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) project aims to create a facility based on particle accelerators to produce radioactive ion beams. The second phase of the project foreseen the transport of the non-reaccelerated radioactive ion beam from the TIS (Target Ion Source) to the low energy experimental hall. This part of SPES beam lines involves the major requirements in terms of...
The Complex Bend (CB) is a novel lattice concept proposed for the NSLS-II upgrade, utilizing permanent magnets instead of traditional electromagnets. This innovative design aims to reduce horizontal emittance from 700 pm to 40 pm and increase beam energy from 3 GeV to 4 GeV, significantly enhancing beam brightness. However, as a new lattice architecture, the CB introduces substantial technical...
The existing direct-drive septum magnet (PE.SMH16), in operation since 1994, is reaching the end of its lifetime under increased extraction frequency and will be replaced by a new eddy-current septum magnet, requiring a redesigned 30 kA pulsed generator. To meet the demanding flat-top stability requirement of ±0.05% over an 11 µs window and ±0.05% pulse-to-pulse repeatability over a year, a...
Aiming at the limitations of the traditional manual inspection method for particle accelerator facilities, an intelligent inspection system for particle accelerator facilities based on multi-modal sensors and artificial intelligence technology is provided. Multi-modal sensors can collect various types of data from the accelerator facilities, such as temperature, audio, images, and water...
A new general-purpose analog signal digitizer has been designed and prototyped to serve as an upgrade to the legacy Multiplexed Analog to Digital Converter (MADC) system currently in use around the RHIC accelerator and injector complex at BNL. The new system is a standalone rackmount chassis with an embedded System on a Chip (SoC). This is a departure from the traditional VME form factor used...
This contribution proposes a design study focused on the future integration between an EPICS-based accelerator control system and a medical treatment environment within the ANTHEM project. As the accelerator subsystems (source, RFQ, MEBT, etc.) evolve toward operational readiness, a conceptual architecture is needed to bridge high-level beamline control with treatment room systems. The goal is...
Two new High-Dynamic Double Crystal Monochromators (HD-DCM-Lite) have been successfully deployed on the SAPUCAIA (SAXS) and QUATI (quick-EXAFS) beamlines at SIRIUS. Building on previous work, that introduced the dynamic modeling and initial stabilization control strategies*, this paper details the mechatronic architecture, commutation schemes, and control strategies that enabled these systems...
The ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics) gamma beam system employs a 234-742 MeV linear accelerator to generate gamma rays via laser-electron interactions. Accelerator operation requires coordinated control of multiple subsystems (RF, vacuum, magnets, diagnostics). During pre-commissioning, we developed an EPICS-based platform to enable equipment debugging and beam tuning...
This study develops a virtual beamline technology for advanced light sources, with a focus on simulating the fundamental operational functions of critical devices including motors, double-crystal monochromators (DCM), fluorescent screens (FS), X-ray detectors, and X-ray beam position monitors (XBPM). By establishing parametric models, the simulation of device actions is achieved. It supports...
The third-generation synchrotron accelerator Pohang Light Source-II (PLS-II) at Pohang Accelerator Laboratory uses a Fast Orbit Feedback (FOFB) system to maintain beam orbit stability in the storage ring. The FOFB system operates in real time to suppress orbit perturbations in both horizontal and vertical directions. Currently, the system uses VME-based Single Board Computers (SBCs) and...
The PIP-II superconducting linac at Fermilab is designed to deliver multi-megawatt proton beams for neutrino physics and other high-intensity applications. To expedite commissioning and enhance operational reliability, we have developed an EPICS-based data flow framework that seamlessly integrates digital twins (DT) with physical twins (PT). These digital twins comprise high-fidelity beam...
The growing diversity of PLC models and brands in industrial controls systems is increasing the complexity of the communications at the supervisory (SCADA) and control layers. At CERN, the in-house framework UNICOS-CPC manages this diversity through the integration of proprietary and open communication protocols, as well as bespoke implementations at the SCADA level to manage the incoming...
Studies with the SIRIUS Fast Orbit Feedback (FOFB) system revealed that its power supplies were operating near saturation, which limited the achievable FOFB controller gain. Further analysis identified avoidable noise sources in Beam Position Monitors (BPMs) and adjacent magnet power supplies as the main causes of this behavior. This paper presents a model-based approach employing Infinite...
The EPICS Input/Output Controller (IOC) has always been extensible, enabling applications to add functionality without modifying the core software. Since the early EPICS 3.14 releases in 2002 the Core Developers have introduced ten new extension mechanisms that IOC application developers can use in individual IOCs or shared support modules. This paper reviews the plugin interfaces available in...
The SIRIUS accelerators have used containers for IOCs for years, but build definitions and launch scripts were often duplicated, and image sizes could be over 3GB. On the other hand, the SIRIUS beamlines, until recently, used IOCs installed in a shared NFS, which complicated application management, especially across different OS versions.
To address these issues, we have developed a framework...
The National Synchrotron Radiation Center SOLARIS, third generation light source, is the only synchrotron located in Central-Eastern Europe, in Poland. The SOLARIS Center, with seven fully operational beamlines, serves as a hub for research across a diverse range of disciplines. The most important aspect of such research infrastructure is to provide stable working conditions for the users,...
The SPIRAL2 heavy ion accelerator is currently undergoing several extension projects under development. In Phase 1+, the DESIR experimental hall will receive very low energy radioactive ion beams from S3 or SPIRAL1. In Phase 1++, a new cryogenic ion source and a new injector will be implemented to broaden the range of heavy ions currently accelerated.
This contribution presents the...
The Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) is a major upgrade project for the existing light source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There is a growing interest in the community to employ ML/AI methods to use predictive analysis, optimization and error fault analysis. In order to enable those methods, a rich dataset must be available and integrated into the control system. This...
Control Systems development is often the last thing considered when designing and building new equipment, e.g. a new detector or superconducting RF LINAC; however when the new equipment is installed, it is the first thing desired to be operational for testing. Due to frequent delays in building new equipment and project deadlines, control system development and testing is often curtailed. A...
As part of the construction of the SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa’s Karoo desert, each of the 133 new mid-frequency radio dish structures, supporting a 15m diameter dish, must undergo a thorough qualification process before they are integrated into the array. To support this work, the SKAO Wombat team has developed the Dish Structure Qualification (DiSQ) software: a tailored suite of tools...
A muon linear accelerator (Muon Linac) for the muon g-2/EDM experiment is currently under construction at Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The objective of this project is to accelerate thermal muons (25 meV at 300 K) to 212 MeV, marking the world’s first implementation of muon acceleration.
Development of the control system for the Muon Linac began in 2024, with the...
Managing a large number of EPICS Input/Output Controllers (IOCs) in a control system presents significant challenges in configuration, deployment, and maintenance. This poster introduces a streamlined deployment pipeline that efficiently manages IOC lifecycles within containerized environments, leveraging CI/CD practices for robust configuration management and automated updates. A key feature...
The complexity of the CERN and GSI/FAIR accelerator facilities requires a high degree of automation to maximize beam time and performance for physics experiments. GeOFF, the Generic Optimization Framework & Frontend, is an open-source tool developed within the EURO-LABS project by CERN and GSI to streamline access to classical and AI-based optimization methods. It provides standardized...
Particle accelerator modeling tools are largely based on open-source codes that utilize specialized command line interfaces. This makes them well suited for high performance computing workflows, however difficult for proficient usage. Moreover, the associated customized computing environments makes models difficult to share. RadiaSoft developed a browser-based toolkit enabling accelerator...
The High Luminosity-Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project at CERN aims to increase the integrated luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). As an important milestone of the HL-LHC project, the scope of the Inner Triplet (IT) String test facility is to represent the various operation modes and the controls environment to study and validate the collective behaviour of the different...
Research conducted at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) seeks to increase the safety of space exploration. The NSRL uses beams of heavy ions extracted from Brookhaven's Booster synchrotron to simulate the high-energy cosmic rays found in space. To accomplish this, the source machines provide many potential beam species, ranging in atomic number (Z) from 1, hydrogen/protons, to 83,...
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems traditionally acquire data from PLCs through polling. The Time Stamped Push Protocol (TSPP), on the other hand, enables a PLC to timestamp and push data to the SCADA at its own discretion. The Vacuum Control Systems for CERN accelerators are primarily built on a dedicated Vacuum Framework, which relies on polling and is therefore subject...
Typical operational environments for industrial particle accelerators are less controlled than those of research accelerators. This leads to increased levels of noise in electronic systems, including radio frequency (RF) systems, which make control and optimization more difficult. This is compounded by the fact that industrial accelerators are mass-produced with less attention paid to...
The use of Digital Control Systems (DCS) with process simulators for engineering purpose, control system validation, virtual commissioning, or operator training is increasingly demanded in large and increasingly complex industrial projects.
Coupling a DCS with a process simulator requires to support specific functionalities: ability to operate on a simulated time basis and to save/restore...
The Laser MegaJoule, a 176-beam laser facility developed by CEA, is located near Bordeaux. It is part of the French Simulation Program, which combines improvement of theoretical models used in various domains of physics and high performance numerical simulation. It is designed to deliver about 1.4 MJ of energy on targets, for high energy density physics experiments, including fusion...
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's upgrade to the LCLS-II, featuring a 4 GeV superconducting linear accelerator with 37 cryomodules and two helium refrigeration systems supporting 4 kW at 2.0 K, represents a significant advancement in accelerator technology. Central to this upgrade is a 2K system with five stages of centrifugal cold compressors, operating across a pressure range from...
Modern systems for electronic log keeping and trouble log management generate vast datasets of issues, events, solutions, and discussions. However, extracting actionable insights from this information remains a challenge without advanced analysis tools. This paper introduces an enhancement to two log programs—Electronic Log Keeping (elog) and Trouble Logging (TroubleLog) - used in the RHIC...
Libera instruments have been used with various control systems for several years. In line with the latest security and functionality upgrades, Libera control system interfaces have also been upgraded. EPICS interface in Libera instruments has been upgraded to support the latest EPICS BASE version 7.0.9, which enables users to use the PVA protocol and retrieve more signal data in a single call....
To support multiple scientific facilities at SLAC, a modern logging system capable of high message throughput and easy record filtering is required. A new logging system deployed at SLAC meets these requirements by blending an existing EPICS logging server with open-source technologies for log storage and retrieval. To save log data, Loki was chosen as the data storage technology. Promtail was...
Hadron Experimental Facility (HEF) is designed to handle intense slow-extraction proton beam from 30-GeV Main Ring (MR) of Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The production target in HEF is operated under severe conditions in which its temperatures periodically vary from 30 to over 300 °C by heat deposit of irradiated beams. In a long term, a careful evaluation of damage to...
Machine learning methods have been demonstrated significant promise when applied in the context of accelerator controls. This work highlights the ongoing efforts using ML methods to improve and optimise the operation of the accelerator. We present current applications in anomaly detection, optimisation and digital twinning. As well as control applications the machine learning operations...
Precise control of the longitudinal phase space (LPS) in X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) is critical for optimizing beam qualities and X-ray pulses properties required by the experimental stations. We present results of using machine learning techniques for LPS shaping and control with Bayesian optimization.
The MeerKAT Antenna Positioner Emulator (APE) project is being built to imitate the functionality of the antenna positioner servo system (AP). The AP is the mechanical component mainly responsible for the mounting and pointing of the antenna structure on the MeerKAT radio telescope. The project aim is fault finding, obsolescence mitigation, software debugging, and technical training. APE will...
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is currently developing new hardware description language (HDL) code and embedded software for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) control system. Part of this effort is modernizing the development process itself, leveraging methodologies and tools that were initially targeted at the software world. These methods include effective source control and project...
Between the start of LCLS in 2009 and Python 2’s end of life status in 2020, many control system tools and user interfaces were created using home-built Python 2 environments. With the end of official support for Python 2 comes a host of maintenance issues for all the legacy applications that survive to this day. This poster will contain techniques for modernizing these applications, common...
This paper describes the approach to modernizing Los Alamos Neutron Science Center’s (LANSCE) Event Receiver (EVR) by replacing the Micro Research Finland (MRF) EVR with Xilinx UltraScale+ Multi-Processor System on a Chip (MPSoC). The Xilinx UltraScale+ MPSoC architecture has been chosen for this project due to its use by other teams across LANSCE and around the industry. The EVR modernization...
Sardana* and Taurus** are community-driven, open-source SCADA solutions that have been used for over a decade in scientific facilities, including synchrotrons (ALBA, DESY, MAX IV, SOLARIS) and laser laboratories (MBI-Berlin).
Taurus is a Python framework for building both graphical and command-line user interfaces that support multiple control systems or data sources. Sardana, is an...
Abstract
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE ) has completed a significant modernization effort, migrating from the legacy RICE control system to an entirely EPICS-based infrastructure. A key enabler of this transition has been the development and deployment of modular, object-oriented Industrial I/O (IIO) architectures on National Instruments (NI) cRIO platforms. The Industrial I/O...
The Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) is a major upgrade project for the existing light source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. One of the key challenges of the upgrade is that the new accelerator sections cannot operate at the existing RF frequency. The injector will operate at the current RF frequency (f1 = 499.64MHz) and the new Accumulator Ring and Storage Ring will operate at...
The European Spallation Source (ESS) is set to become the world's most powerful neutron source, enabling groundbreaking research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. A key tool used in its operation is the ESS Sequencer — a software tool designed to automate commonly executed high-level Main Control Room procedures required for the facility’s functionality. By using predefined...
SKA-Low is the low frequency radio telescope currently
under construction in Western Australia. At its final extent,
it will consist of 512 stations up to 74 km apart, each
containing 256 antennas which can be used in different
combinations to digitally “point” the telescope. The
Monitoring, Control and Calibration Subsystem (MCCS) is
responsible for performing calibration and providing...
The Machine Learning Data Platform (MLDP) is a product providing full-stack support for data science, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning (AI/ML) applications at particle accelerator and large experimental physics facilities. It supports AI/ML applications from front-end, high-speed acquisition of heterogeneous, time-series data, through data archiving and management, to back-end...
In storage ring light sources, two important performance parameters are injection efficiency and lifetime. Accelerator particle tracking in digital twins and simulators is an approach to efficiently derive these quantities and guide the optimization of the physical accelerator machine. These calculations are resource-intensive processes that often require high-performance computing. GPU usage...
The power supplies used for FOFB correctors at SIRIUS expose only electrical current values, making it necessary to perform conversions to and from beam kick values. To take advantage of the canonical Python implementation of this conversion, a separate IOC was developed using pyEPICS and PCASPy. This technology stack imposed some limitations, making it necessary to limit the update rate, and,...
The performance of real-time software is critical in accelerator control systems, where precision and reliability are essential. This paper presents a method for performance characterisation of real-time software developed in C++, using a digital camera-based acquisition system at CERN as a case study. Key performance metrics, including execution time, latency, memory footprint and network use...
The physics application software is a critical part of the FRIB accelerator’s control and beam tuning infrastructure. Development of high-level applications (HLAs) and online modeling tools began well before initial beam commissioning to support early machine setup, diagnostics, and operational readiness. As the accelerator transitioned to routine beam delivery, a broader suite of applications...
Scheduled to begin Operations in 2035, the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is being built at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and will be the only operating particle collider in the United States. It may also be the only large collider built in the world in the next 20-30 years, during the “Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. Recognizing the potential for AI and machine learning (ML) to...
PLC Integrator is a newly developed tool to integrate PLC based control systems with the EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) framework, replacing the legacy PLC Factory at the European Spallation Source (ESS). PLC Factory depended on the ESS Controls Configuration Database (CCDB) service and REST APIs to generate PLC code and interface via Modbus TCP/IP, but its outdated...
A proton pulse charge calculation algorithm in the Beam Power Limiting System (BPLS) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) was developed and implemented in an FPGA. The algorithm calculates one-minute running average of the pulse charges and issues a fault to the Personal Protection System (PPS) and the Machine Protection System (MPS) when a limit is reached.
A bit-accurate model of the...
At the ISIS accelerators we are migrating to an EPICS control system using the pvAccess protocol, with most of our IOCs and equivalents running in containers. By default, the pvAccess protocol relies on UDP broadcasts for discovery of PVs. Issues that may arise due to this in a containerised environment are discussed, and solutions both general and specific to Docker Swarm are presented. We...
When operating a complex accelerator facility such as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), it is often necessary to observe live signal waveforms for various purposes. Traditionally, this has been done using dedicated physical oscilloscopes, whether permanently installed alongside equipment or temporarily deployed on rolling carts. At times, the screens of these oscilloscopes were...
The Fermilab PIP-II (proton improvement plan - II) project is being constructed at Fermilab to deliver $800\,MeV$ protons of $>1\,MW$ beam power to replace the present LINAC and provide protons to the remainder of the existing accelerator complex. The new LINAC consists of a warm front end, 23 superconducting RF cryomodules, and a beam transfer line to the existing complex. The cryomodules...
Recent developments at the INFN laboratories in Legnaro have demonstrated the effectiveness of Bayesian optimization in automating the tuning process of particle accelerators, yielding substantial improvements in beam quality, significantly reducing setup times, and shortening recovery times following interruptions. Despite these advances, the high-dimensional parameter space defined by...
For more than half a decade, RadiaSoft has developed machine learning (ML) solutions to problems of immediate, practical interest in particle accelerator operations. These solutions include machine vision through convolutional neural networks for automating neutron scattering experiments and several classes of autoencoder networks for de-noising signals from beam position monitors and...
In industrial engineering, scheduling is a well-established strategy for optimizing resource use and minimizing operational costs. At CERN's Engineering department, the Cooling and Ventilation group has implemented an automatic scheduling solution to reduce electricity consumption by selectively shutting down plants during nights and weekends, when their operation is not required. Given that...
This paper presents the Automatic Control Sequence (ACS) developed and implemented to simplify the control of cryogenic processes in the linear accelerator (LINAC) at the European Spallation Source (ESS), which includes 27 cryomodules and 43 valveboxes. The main objectives of the project were to reduce the risk of human error and minimize manual operations — while maintaining full...
It is 2025 and the SKA Telescope Control System has come a long way since the start of construction. The outline of the software architecture and some key technology decisions (including the choice of Tango) were made early. To keep the geographically distributed teams engaged, and avoid creating silos and fragmentation, development of virtually all the software components started in...
Operational since 2008, SOLEIL [1] offers users access to a wide array of experimental techniques through its 29 beamlines, covering a broad energy spectrum from THz to hard X-rays. In response to evolving scientific and societal needs, SOLEIL is undergoing a major upgrade through the SOLEIL II project. This transformative initiative includes the development of a new Diffraction Limited...
To meet the stringent requirements of beam commissioning at the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), China’s first fourth-generation high-energy synchrotron light source, a new high-level application (HLA) framework named Pyapas was developed entirely in Python. Designed for flexibility and maintainability, Pyapas serves as the foundation for all HLAs at HEPS, supporting tasks such as orbit...
For the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project at CERN, a dedicated cryogenic test facility—HL-LHC IT String—is being commissioned. This cryogenic system including a helium refrigerator, a 100 m-long cryogenic distribution line, and a low-pressure pumping system with a cold compressor (CC). A key challenge is the management of time-varying delays in the system's thermal and pressure responses,...
In view of the consolidation of the LHC Beam Dumping System (LBDS) control planned during CERN Long Shutdown 3 (LS3), a study was conducted to evaluate industrial Ethernet-based protocols to simplify the current multi-fieldbus architecture connecting PLCs and distributed I/O. Initial assessments used the 32-bit PROFINET driver as an alternative communication interface between the Front-End...
The ALPI linear accelerator at the Legnaro National Laboratories serves as the final superconducting stage in a complex chain designed to accelerate heavy ions—from carbon to uranium—for nuclear and applied physics experiments. It also plays a key role in the SPES project, aimed at re-accelerating exotic radioactive ion beams. Within the TANDEM-PIAVE-ALPI (TAP) complex, the PIAVE injector...
EuAPS (EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Source) is a project carried out in the EuPRAXIA context and financed by the Italian Ministry in the Recovery Europe plan framework. A new advanced betatron radiation source, obtained by exploiting plasma LWFA, is currently being realized at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of INFN in Italy and will be operated as user facility. Several elements of EuAPS are...
The AlarmHandler system is a key component for ensuring operational safety and efficiency in complex control systems. Key updates include improved support for array data types within the alarm evaluation logic, enabling more sophisticated and flexible condition definitions directly involving array or matrix data. Furthermore new tools, designed to extend the AlarmHandler's reach and usability,...
Understanding and diagnosing the state of a particle accelerator requires navigating high-dimensional control system data, often involving hundreds of interdependent parameters. We propose a novel multimodal embedding framework that jointly learns representations of machine states from both numerical control system readouts and natural language descriptions. This enables the translation of...
Advances in optimization and machine learning algorithms have shown great potential when applied to control systems of many industries, such as automotive, avionics and aerospace. At CERN, we also find many initiatives applied to our particle accelerators and industrial facilities. In recent years, neural networks are increasingly being explored as components or even full replacements for...
The Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerating System (ATLAS) is a U.S. DOE national user facility that delivers stable and radioactive ion beams from hydrogen to uranium for low-energy nuclear physics research [1]. Operators routinely expedite setup by restoring previously optimized machine parameters sets (“tunes”). The legacy tune archiving system, implemented in Corel Paradox (1999), has become a...
Many control algorithms or optimisation procedures profit from a consistent set of data which is available with a high frequency: e.g. machine learning or automated commissioning. Modern distributed control systems allow combining and presenting data based on data models, which are then transported consistently over the network: e.g. EPICS7 introduced these data models as normative types or...
Programming language compilers utilize sophisticated optimization techniques to translate high-level abstractions into performant machine code. These transformations, such as instruction scheduling and data pre-loading, are deemed correct if they preserve the program's observable behavior. However, such optimizations often fail to maintain correctness when interacting with hardware peripherals...
Accurate calibration of beam instrumentation is critical for the optimal operation of particle accelerators. This work presents a case study of a beam imaging system at CERN’s Antiproton Decelerator (AD) target, composed of a light-emitting screen interacting with the beam and an observation camera. During operational use, the system required frequent online recalibrations to address...
The fourth generation of power converter control at CERN, known as Function Generator/Controller 4 (FGC4), is currently under development. The chosen hardware is based on a quad-core A53 ARM-architecture CPU within an AMD Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC System-on-Chip (SoC), where one core is dedicated to voltage source control. This architecture necessitates a new approach to voltage control software,...
The Advanced Photon Source (APS) recently completed a significant upgrade to its storage ring, replacing all existing components with new ones. One of the newly introduced systems is the waveform monitoring system. This system is a 2U rackmount chassis with 8 ADC inputs, MRF event link and 16 channels of TTL I/O. This is an FPGA-based 8-channel 4 GS/s digitizer that monitors the decoherence...
WREN is a versatile White Rabbit (WR) node developed for CERN's event-based timing system renovation. Thousands of WRENs are expected to be deployed across the entire CERN accelerator complex from 2027 onwards. Equipped with dedicated hardware and gateware, WREN integrates synchronisation in both TAI (International Atomic Time) and RF (accelerator Radio Frequency) timing. It can function as a...
Machine learning (ML)-based black-box optimization algorithms have demonstrated significant improvements in accelerator optimization speed, often by orders of magnitude. However, deploying these algorithms in real-time facility control remains challenging due to the specialized expertise and infrastructure required. To bridge this gap, we introduce the Xopt ecosystem, a versatile suite of...
